


Small Bump

by kanonkita



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Mech Preg, Mpreg, Pre-War AU, Sappiness, Sorry Not Sorry, fluffy stuff, humanformers... i guess?, troubled pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 03:19:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12423987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kanonkita/pseuds/kanonkita
Summary: Starscream finds something troubling in his sparkchamber one morning...





	Small Bump

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be one of a couple of one shots I've got waiting in the wings to come after my fic Failing and Flying, but then I realized that with the social dynamics I've worked out, it wouldn't make sense for mechs to be able to spark in that AU. 
> 
> So.... it's just kind of this free-floating thing that happens in some AU where Megatron and Starscream met and got bonded way before the war ever started. As such, they're not so nasty as they normally would be (I ascribe heavily to the fannon that Megatron in particular was not such a bad guy in the earlier part of his life). And they happen to be humanformers...? Honestly, I might go in and just edit it so that they're not at some point. I'm too lazy right now. Pbtpbtpbt.
> 
> Anyway, it's a super different tone from my usual stuff, but I figured that if I wrote it, I might as well post it.

“Frag.”

It was all Starscream could think to say as he stared at his reflection in the mirror. At first, he had convinced himself that he was seeing some sort of optical illusion that came from trying to look at a bright light in a mirror, but the longer he stared, the more obvious it was what he was seeing. There was a second spark, tiny and dim, orbiting his own.

“Frag, frag, frag.” He repeated it like a mantra that might make the little light go away, aware of the irony that it was exactly what had gotten him in this situation in the first place.

He hadn’t really needed to see; he’d felt the little life brushing his own so strongly that morning that there’d been no doubt in his mind what it was. He was just in denial. He’d been in denial for the past couple of weeks, every time he had to duck into the bathroom to purge or felt the strange pressure in his lower abdomen.

He let the plates of his chest slide shut again and demechanized them, leaving only smooth skin once more. Now that the light was gone, he could almost convince himself that he hadn’t seen it.

Almost.

The tears welling up in his eyes and the bile rising in his throat were sure indicators that this was something he wasn’t going to be able to ignore.

 

* * *

 

Megatron was ecstatic when he heard the news, but he did his best to hide it when he realized just how scared Starscream was.

“I’m gonna mess it up,” his mate insisted, clutching a handful of his hair in each fist. “I’m too young for this! I don’t know what I’m doing! We’re gonna mess this up so bad!”

“Hey, you’ve already raised one sparkling, and he didn’t turn out so bad,” Megatron reminded him, easing the Seeker’s hands into his own before he could do himself harm. Starscream was shaking his head, though.

“Warp was already five years old when I got him. I don’t know anything about newsparks, and I certainly don’t know about carrying! What if I accidentally kill it before it’s even born!?” he demanded, staring in horror at his abdomen and mate in turn.

Megatron sighed and led him over to the couch where he managed to convince him to sit down. “You’ll be just fine, and so will our sparkling,” he assured, resting a large hand over the spot where he knew he would soon be able to feel the sparkbeat of a new life—a life that they had created together. 

Of course, Starscream was wonderful, but that Primus would allow someone like Megatron to care for one of His sparks… It was humbling and amazing at the same time. The gladiator wanted to pull his mate into his arms and spin him around in joy. 

Starscream just wanted to throw up.

“You don’t know that,” he mumbled around the rising nausea.

“What’s that?” Megatron leaned down closer, just as Starscream puked spectacularly all over the both of them.

“Get used to it,” was all the Seeker said at the shocked look on the gladiator’s vomit-splattered face.

 

* * *

 

Starscream  _ was _ still a bit young to be carrying, for a free-sparked mech. Protoforms could safely carry as young as 100,000 years old, but most doctors recommended that free-sparks wait until as late as five million, especially mechs, who always had more difficulty carrying than femmes with their narrower hips and more delicate valves. 

At only three-and-a-half million, Starscream had only just barely started having cycles, and his small frame meant that the few he’d had were agonizingly painful. He could only imagine how much worse it would be trying to fit a sparkling in there, let alone push it out of himself.

“For now, you’ll need to increase your energon intake almost threefold, and you should limit your activities as much as possible,” Outburst instructed. As a medic who already knew about their relationship, he was the only one they had felt comfortable going to (of course, Shockwave was technically a medic too, but neither of them had even considered him). “No heavy lifting, no running, and no flying.”

“ _ What!? _ ” Starscream shrieked, and Megatron quickly stepped forward before his mate could try to claw Outburst’s eyes out.

“Sorry, but that’s just the way it is, sweetspark,” the medic said. “Enjoy what little freedom you have while you can, though, because in a few months, you’re gonna be on bed rest.”

Starscream looked to Megatron, his eyes pleading.

“Megatron, don’t you dare give in to him,” Outburst growled, pointing the injection he was preparing in the gladiator’s direction. “I don’t care what he offers or threatens you with, if you want to get through this with both your mate and your sparkling intact, you’ll keep him on the ground.”

“Sorry, Star,” Megatron said, giving him an apologetic smile. “Doctor’s orders.”

 

* * *

 

It was easier said than done. Starscream’s flight longing set in faster than usual with all the other hormones raging through his body. Not more than a week after the flight ban, Megatron found himself having to physically restrain his hysterical mate as the Seeker raged at him, trying to transform despite the massive arms holding him. He ended up calling Soundwave, who was able to use his telepathy to calm Starscream down a bit. Once they had convinced the Seeker to drift off to sleep, Megatron went to Outburst and got a transformation disrupter, which he slipped around his unconscious mate’s wrist.

Starscream was furious when he saw it, shrieking about traitors and charlatans and words that Megatron hoped he would get out of the habit of using before their sparkling was born, but couldn’t get the disruptor off no matter how hard he clawed at it. Megatron ended up having to restrain him again for fear that he would break his own wrist. 

Eventually, the Seeker tantrummed himself out and saw fit to spend the next three hours lying on his side of the bed with his back to Megatron, refusing to speak to him.

“Okay, Star. I know you’re struggling, but this is getting ridiculous. You need to at least refuel!” Megatron snapped, finally losing his patience. “Don’t you care about the sparkling?”

Finally, Starscream whipped around to look at him, face furious.

“What would you know!?” he demanded, his voice unusually hoarse from all the screaming earlier. “You can’t feel it! You don’t know! You don’t… You’re such an idiot!”

And suddenly he was crying again, but this time they sounded more like tears of genuine distress than anger or frustration. Megatron rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and prayed to Primus for strength. It would all be worth it in the end, he told himself before climbing into the bed and pulling the sobbing Seeker to his chest.

“Okay, what’s really the matter, niblet? Because I’m starting to think this is more than just flight longing.”

“It’s just… I can feel it,” Starscream sniffed. “I can feel it in my spark already. I can’t  _ not _ care, and I’m scared, Megs. I’m so scared!”

Megatron sighed and sank down on the bed beside him, remembering how it had been when he had first felt his brother’s spark signature beside his own, and that had just been a sibling bond. He imagined it was a hundred times stronger when it was a carrier bond. He wished that he could feel it too to relieve Starscream of even a portion of the burden, but for whatever reason, Primus had not seen fit for sires to bond with their children in the same way that carriers did.

“What are you scared of?” he asked, stroking his mate’s cheek. He already knew, but he wanted to let Starscream tell him.

“This is forever. Even more than you or my brothers, this is a bond that will never go away until I die. No matter what happens or what kind of person he grows into or how much we might end up hurting or hating each other, I’ll always be his carrier. I’ll always be the first one he relies on.”

He. It was the first time Starscream had referred to their child as anything other than “it.”

“And the thing is,” Starscream continued, choking on a sob, “I want to. I can’t help it! I already love him so much that it scares me, and I haven’t even met him yet! It’s overwhelming and I can’t control it and I don’t know what to do!”

“Lean on me,” Megatron said simply. “When it’s too much, you can lean on me and I’ll help you bear it. We’ll both be his parents. You’re not alone, love. Just open our bond, and I’ll take whatever pain you can’t.”

In the brief silence that followed, Megatron congratulated himself on that speech. It was one of his better ones, and he would have to write it down somewhere before he forgot it. But not now.

Because now Starscream was reaching for him, letting Megatron pull him into his arms before opening up their bond to its full extent. The gladiator buried his face in his hair and inhaled deeply as all the pain, the fear, and the unbridled joy and love came sweeping through him. He sent his own love back, and Starscream tilted his head up to kiss him, twining thin arms around his neck.

“I’m not supposed to have any strenuous activity,” Starscream reminded his mate, and Megatron growled low into his hair.

“Outburst said this was okay.”

“You  _ asked _ him!?” the Seeker demanded, pulling back slightly.

“Of course I did,” Megatron chuckled, tugging him close again. “Do you have any idea how crazy I would go if I couldn’t touch you for nine whole months?”

“Painfully well,” Starscream grunted against his neck. “That’s what got me into this situation in the first place.”

 

* * *

 

A while later, they both lay panting and slightly sticky on the bed together, still wrapped in each other’s arms.

“Hey, so it’s a mech, then?” Megatron asked, remembering an important question from earlier.

“I think so,” Starscream said after a pause.

Megatron rolled back far enough that he could rest a hand on Starscream’s belly. There was still no outward sign that he was carrying, although the Seeker claimed that he could already feel the swelling in the pit of his stomach, almost as if he’d guzzled down way too much energon and it was just sitting there, obstructing the rest of his inner workings. It was only a matter of time though, before his taut stomach began to stretch to accommodate the growing sparkling within, and Megatron tried to imagine what he would look like by the end of his carrying. 

Their child would have to be born surgically; Outburst had already given Starscream a thorough examination and declared that there was no way he would survive trying to push it out on his own. Normally, a mech’s hips would widen out when he was carrying to allow the sparkling a safe exit, but Starscream was young enough that those particular protocols hadn’t developed yet.

So, the Seeker would have a scar across his belly from now on. Megatron tried to imagine that, too, tracing his finger over where he thought they might cut his mate. He wished that they could trade, that he with his larger, more developed frame could be the one to carry their sparkling, but of course his carrying equipment had long since been damaged beyond repair—the life of a gladiator.

All that considered, he felt a rush of overwhelming gratitude and love toward Starscream for being willing to carry his sparkling—feelings he wasn’t entirely sure how to express. For now, he leaned down and planted a kiss just below his mate’s navel.

“Hello, son,” he murmured, laying his face against the smooth skin and wondering how long it would be before he could hear the sparkbeat there.

Starscream just stroked his hair, waves of love and contentment echoing back and forth through their bond.

“About the flying,” Megatron said after a while, and he felt Starscream tense slightly beneath him. “What if you had TC take you sometimes? You fit in his cockpit, don’t you? I know it’s not the same, but it might help.”

“It might,” Starscream confessed. He was sure that TC would agree to it, too; his brothers were both over the moons that he was carrying in the first place and wanted to be involved as much as possible. He hadn’t wanted to tell them for a while, but they’d noticed the shift in his spark energy anyway.

“If not, we’ll figure something out. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

“What about Arken?” Starscream called from the living room. “Like the wandering hero in  _ Tales of the Alchemist _ ?”

Megatron leaned out of the bathroom to look at his mate, sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch, books and papers spread out around him.

“I still think it would be better to wait until we meet him to name him,” he called back.

“Well, sure,  _ you _ do, but  _ I’ve _ already got him inside me. I do have some inkling what kind of mech he’s going to be, and I think he just might be an Arken,” Starscream replied, adding the name to the growing list in front of him.

“When did your mother pick your name?” Megatron wondered, surprised that he’d never thought to ask before.

Starscream scoffed. “She had this whole sappy story about some dream she had when she was still a youngling, where this little sparkling showed up and insisted it was her son and she had to name it Starscream.”

“You would!” the gladiator laughed, ducking back into the bathroom.

“It’s impossible,” Starscream protested. “My spark hadn’t even been formed yet!”

“I dunno. I’ve read theories that our sparks were all already individualized within Primus from the beginning.” Megatron said as he smeared paste on his toothbrush. 

Starscream didn’t answer, and Megatron assumed it was because his mate didn’t like talking about things like theology and Primus. He wasn’t the sort to outright deny the Creator’s existence, but even after half a million years of being bonded, he couldn’t share Megatron’s stalwart faith in Him.

When Megatron stepped back into the living room a minute later, toothbrush in mouth, he found Starscream doubled over, breathing slowly as though trying not to purge. Megatron hurried into the kitchen to grab a bowl, which he managed to shove into his mate’s hands just in time.

“Thanks,” Starscream mumbled when he had stopped heaving, and Megatron patted his back in reply. He didn’t take the bowl to empty it yet, though; he had learned over the last three months that they wouldn’t be in the clear just yet. And sure enough, a moment later, Starscream was heaving again, the scent of half-digested energon mixing unpleasantly with the taste of the toothpaste already in Megatron’s mouth.

This time when he’d finished, Megatron helped him lean over onto his side before going to empty the bowl. He came back soon after with a glass of water and Starscream’s own toothbrush. The whole thing had become routine by now, and he barely knocked Starscream’s gums anymore as he scrubbed the taste of sick out of his mouth for him.

“Do you have to go out tonight?” Starscream asked when it was done, tugging on the cuff of the suit Megatron was wearing.

“Sorry, but I really can’t refuse the invitation this time,” the gladiator said regretfully as he stroked sweaty hair back from his mate’s thin face.

Starscream sighed, but Megatron knew he understood. And he was getting better anyway. Outburst had assured them that the nausea would fade as the first trimester came to an end, and it seemed to be the case. There had been a time during the second month when he’d been purging so often that they’d had to put him on an energon drip, but by now it was only once a day at most. He was starting to gain back a bit of the weight he’d lost in the first two months, which was promising.

“Why don’t you call Skywarp over?” Megatron suggested as he got up to go change into a different suit jacket—this one now smelled of vomit, which he didn’t think would go over well at the congratulatory gala for the new governor of Kaon.

“Maybe,” Starscream sighed, pulling himself up onto the couch.

When Megatron came back in fresh clothes, he was reading again, flipping through the pages of one of Megatron’s own poetry collections.

“Don’t you dare name him something from one of my poems,” the gladiator growled, snatching the book out of his hands.

“Why not?” Starscream whined. “I love your poems!”

“I know, and I love you for it, but it would be more embarrassing than I can tell you to name my son from my own writing.”

Starscream laughed and looked down at his stomach. “Hear that? Daddy’s embarrassed by you, Lightfall.”

“We are  _ not _ calling him Lightfall!” Megatron insisted. “And don’t listen to him! I would never be embarrassed by you, Nemesis.” He aimed this last comment at the small bulge beneath Starscream’s shirt. It was still barely perceptible to the eye, but whenever Megatron ran his hands over him, he could feel the hard swell beneath the soft skin.

“We are  _ definitely _ not calling him  _ Nemesis _ !” Starscream returned, placing his hands protectively over his stomach.

“Why not? Nemesis was an awesome hero. Soundwave even went through a phase of having us call him Nemesis when he was little.”

“I just don’t like the sound of the name.”

“Well,” Megatron said, covering the Seeker’s slender hands with one of his own, “maybe I can settle for Arken.”

Starscream leaned up on his elbows expectantly, and Megatron pressed a chaste kiss to his lips before standing.

“I’ll probably be out until tomorrow morning, knowing Justaway,” he said. “Call your brother; I don’t want you here alone all night. And don’t forget to refuel.”

“I know, I know,” Starscream sighed, waving him out the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Megatron smiled and shut the door as slowly as he could, loathe to cut himself off from the sight of his beautiful, wonderful, brilliant mate.

 

* * *

 

By halfway through the fifth month, the sparkling was already so large that it was hard for Starscream to move around, which was fine since Outburst had ordered him to spend most of his time in bed anyway. 

Things were going better than the medic had feared, though. Arken/Nemesis (they were still arguing about the name) was developing properly, and Starscream was amazed at his last ultrasound check by how his sparkling already looked like a proper newspark instead of the strangely endearing creature that had been swimming about in him a few months ago. Starscream himself was also as healthy as could be hoped for under the circumstances. His energy levels were consistently low and his body constantly cramped and ached with the effort of accommodating a sparkling that shared Megatron's genetic coding, but he had yet to develop any structural abnormalities, which was promising.

Skywarp had become his almost constant companion, at Megatron's request. Despite Outburst's assurances that everything was going well, the gladiator couldn't relax knowing his carrying sparkmate was stuck in bed alone at home all day every day. The younger Seeker was fascinated by his brother's condition, and couldn't get enough of pressing his hands against Starscream's swollen belly to feel the sparkling moving inside.

“We were inside Mom like this once, too, right?” he said one day when Starscream had again relented to allow him to feel his unborn nephew kicking fretfully.

“Duh,” Starscream said, reaching for the cube of low grade on his bedside table and wincing at the way his insides grated against each other with the movement. “But Mom wasn't an idiot like me and waited until she was old enough to carry.”

“You're not an idiot, Star. You were just in love,” Skywarp insisted, and Starscream snorted at his naïve view of the world.

“No, I was an idiot. I knew I’d started cycling, but I didn’t bother getting any kind of contraceptive. I told myself it would be fine because I’m still so young, but I’m a fragging scientist! I should’ve known better.”

“Do you not want the sparkling, then?” Skywarp asked, his eyes wide.

“No!” Starscream said quickly, sitting up. “No, of course I want him! That’s not what I meant at all. I just… I wish it had happened a bit later so that I could have carried him without having to worry so much. It’s not good for either of us.”

“Oh,” Skywarp said, sitting back. “Well, good. I can’t wait to have a nephew.”

“I know,” Starscream grumbled, falling back against his pillows again. “You won’t shut up about it.”

“Do you think he’ll look more like you or Megatron?”

“See for yourself,” the older Seeker sighed, gesturing to the grainy images pinned to the wall.

“I can’t tell anything from those,” Skywarp protested.

“No?” Starscream sat up again and shuffled himself over to the wall to point at the most recent series of images. “This is his face right here. See the eyes and the nose? And here’s a hand. This is one of the feet that’s always kicking me in the bladder.”

Skywarp hummed thoughtfully as he stared at the picture. “I think he’s gonna look kinda like TC,” he said finally.

“What makes you say that?” Starscream demanded.

“Look at the curve of his forehead. That’s totally TC’s forehead.”

“Well, the rest of him will probably look like Megatron,” his brother insisted after realizing what he meant.

“He definitely doesn’t look much like you, at any rate.”

“He might a little bit.”

“Maybe he’ll have your colors. Does he have hair yet?”

“Not for a few more weeks.”

Skywarp hummed again.

Starscream shivered and wrapped a blanket around himself. Among everything else, he seemed to have utterly lost the ability to control his own body temperature lately, which was unfortunate as the weather had taken a turn for the frigid of late.

“I never did like winter,” he grumbled, closing his eyes.

“Well, at least it’ll be over by the time you give birth,” Skywarp pointed out. “Hey, remember that one winter when the energon lines froze and everyone had to move into the opera house to stay warm? That was awesome!”

“Not for us adults,” Starscream mumbled.

“But we got those awesome energon treats! TC showed up with the Air Command to hand out blankets and we got him to play with us. And then…”

He trailed off as he realized that Starscream had started snoring. It was amazing how quickly his brother could fall asleep these days. With a sigh of resignation, Skywarp picked up his datapad and opened up a game.

 

* * *

 

Megatron would have been lying if he said that he wasn’t at least a little resentful to his unborn sparkling for the sheer amount of time his mate spent sleeping these days. The gladiator would leave for the ring early in the morning to conduct trainings, and Starscream would barely stir on his side of their bed, no matter how much noise he made. By the time he got home in the evening, the Seeker had often fallen asleep again. Lately, the only times they ever saw each other awake were on Megatron’s days off, or on those occasions when Starscream was being kept awake by some ache or another when his mate got home.

This was one such evening.

“Get away from me; you stink,” Starscream whined as Megatron crawled right up on top of him in their bed, without even bothering to kick off his boots, and began molesting the Seeker’s neck with his mouth.

“So do you,” Megaton informed him happily. “How are you feeling?”

“My back hurts. I can’t get comfortable anywhere, and I swear—” He drew a sharp intake and continued through gritted teeth “—he’s purposely punching me in the stomach every couple minutes.”

“Stop that,” the gladiator ordered, rubbing the hard bulge of Starscream’s belly. Then, he propped his chin on the Seeker’s shoulder and regarded him fondly for a moment. He reached up and rubbed his thumb between his mate’s knitted brows, as though he could somehow rub away his pain like that. “Come take a bath with me,” he said finally.

“You just wanna get your spike in me,” Starscream scoffed, turning away from him.

“Of course not!” Megatron lied. “I just thought the heat might help.”

“Why do you ever bother trying to lie to me anymore?”

“I’m not… Okay, I won’t get in the bath with you. I won’t even take off my clothes,” Megatron promised, sitting back and raising his hands in surrender. “Unless you ask me to, of course.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Starscream said, holding out his own hands in a request for help getting up off the bed. The idea of a bath was too tempting, whatever Megatron’s intentions for once they’d gotten there. It was too awkward to ask Skywarp to help him bathe, and he didn’t always trust himself not to pass out in the tub.

Megatron grinned and ignored the outstretched hands, sweeping the Seeker up into his arms insteaed to carry him bridal style into their bathroom.

“I can walk!” Starscream protested, kicking his legs.

“I want to carry you,” his mate returned.

While Megatron started filling the big, round tub (something Starscream had insisted that he couldn’t live without when they’d first moved into the place), the Seeker fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. It wasn’t as if Megatron hadn’t seen him naked lately, but he still felt awkward about it. He himself had always thought that carrying mechs looked weird and unbalanced, and that was with their clothing  _ on _ . Without it, there were the stretchmarks, the dry skin, the… everything.

Once he was satisfied with the temperature, Megatron turned back to his mate and perched himself on the edge of the tub.

“What’s wrong?” he wanted to know.

Starscream shrugged and finally pulled the shirt off, followed by his pants. Megatron smiled and motioned for him to come closer. He did so, warily. The older mech reached out for him, wrapping thick arms around him and pressing an ear to his swollen middle.

“I think I can hear the sparkbeat,” he whispered.

“That’s probably just my sparkbeat,” Starscream sniffed, running fingers through his mate’s silvery hair.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Megatron argued, pulling away. “Can I wash your hair for you?”

“And nothing else,” the Seeker said sternly, stepping around him into the waiting bath. He let out a long moan of satisfaction as he sank into the hot solvent.

“Keep making noises like that and I’m gonna get jealous of the tub,” Megatron smirked.

“You should be,” Starscream told him. “It’s given me a lot more fulfillment than you have in the last month.”

Megatron just snorted. Truthfully, he was aching to touch every inch of Starscream right now. He knew that the Seeker was self-conscious about his carrier’s form, but he found it oddly intoxicating himself. He felt the heat coiling in the pit of his stomach as he watched Starscream run his hands absently over the swell of his abdomen.

“Stop, or I’ll send you out,” Starscream snapped, undoubtedly feeling the press of want through their bond.

“I can’t help it,” Megatron protested, leaning over to bury his face in Starscream’s musky hair. “Love you too much.”

Starscream sank down away from him until his head was submerged in the solvent. He stayed that way for a moment before slowly emerging once more, wiping liquid from his eyes before blinking them open and shaking solvent out of his ears.

“Wash me,” he ordered, leaning back against the rim of the tub.

Megatron huffed and grabbed the cleanser, squirting some into the palm of his hand. It only took a few seconds of gentle rubbing and massaging before Starscream was snoring, slack-jawed, his hair still full of suds. 

“Oh, come on!” Megatron groaned.

 

* * *

 

It was Skywarp who had first noticed that something was wrong (he knew his brother was tired, but he shouldn’t have been  _ that _ tired) and called for Outburst. The doctor had looked him over and declared that he just had a bit of a virus, nothing to be concerned about. He’d left some medications and instructions to give him even more low grade than before.

Still, as Megatron sat by his mate’s slumbering form that night, he couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Something felt wrong. He reached over to press his fingers to Starscream’s feverish cheek, and the Seeker shifted slightly in his sleep. The gladiator laid down and curled himself around the smaller mech with practiced care. He slipped a gentle hand down over the bump that concealed their sparkling and felt around until he found the rapid thump of a tiny sparkbeat. It definitely was the sparkling, whatever Starscream might say.

Perhaps he was just overthinking things. He buried his face in the back of Starscream’s neck and fell into recharge.

 

* * *

 

It started as a dull ache, the same sort that woke him occasionally during his cycles, and Starscream shifted, issuing a pitiful moan as the pain pulled him slowly but insistently from recharge. He tried to roll onto his stomach, thinking that the pressure might relieve the pain, but found his swollen belly in the way. Oh, of course. He was carrying, not cycling. So, why did he feel like he was cycling?

He felt for Arken’s small, comforting spark within his own, as had become habit over the last few months. 

It wasn’t there. 

Confused, he tried again, and although he found it, it was smaller and weaker than it had been since that first time he’d noticed it fizzling inside of him. He opened his eyes, pressing a hand to his stomach in concern. This was wrong. All of this was wrong. Fear flooded him and he gripped the arm that Megatron had draped over him, thinking to wake his sparkmate, just as a wave of pain like nothing he’d ever felt before swept through his core.

He cried out, squeezing Megatron’s arm as he curled around himself. The gladiator woke up with a snort, flailing about for a moment until he regained enough consciousness to notice what was happening. Starscream was shrieking in agony by then as another wave of pain gripped him, and it wasn’t just physical agony. He could feel the tiny spark inside of him being torn away, and that hurt just as much if not more than whatever was happening in his carrying chamber.

“Starscream, what’s wrong? What’s happening? Is it…. Oh frag…”

Megatron’s voice suddenly went quiet as he pulled the blankets back to try and examine his distressed mate. Starscream had a feeling he knew why. He could feel the energon flowing freely from his body even if he couldn’t see it. There shouldn’t be energon, though, his scientific side tried to argue. He was far enough along that he should just be going into early labor, not miscarrying. There shouldn’t be energon until the sparkling itself came out, but he couldn’t come out. It was too early. There were still more than three months left. If he came out now, he officially wouldn’t even be considered a stillborn—just a mistake that never happened.

“No,” Starscream gasped as some of the pain faded a little. “No, no, no! Please, Primus, no!”

“It’s okay. Starscream, it’ll be okay! I’m calling Outburst, so just hang in there!” Megatron’s voice was coming to him distantly, but he wasn’t listening anymore.

Arken’s spark had just vanished.

It was completely and utterly gone, and its absence suddenly left him feeling like he had a massive hole in his chest. He curled around himself, clutching at his spark, mouth hanging open without venting a single breath as he tried again and again to find his son’s life force inside of himself.

He was vaguely aware of Megatron shaking his shoulder, then picking him up, calling his name over and over, but he couldn’t answer.

Why?

When he’d fallen asleep a few hours ago, everything had been fine. Arken’s spark had been beating strong inside him just as it had for the last six months. He’d even been annoyed at the sparkling for kicking his bladder again while he was trying to drift off. So why? Why was he suddenly gone? Why did it hurt so much? He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the reality of it. 

As Megatron had lifted him, he’d caught a glimpse of the glowing pool of energon spreading across their bedsheets, and he wondered if maybe he would bleed enough that he would die too.

Six months. Only six months he’d felt that little life inside of him, and already it had become even more important than his own. He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t. 

But he was.

And it was from that undeniable reality that Starscream let himself slip away.

 

* * *

 

Full gestational rejection.

Megatron had heard the term before; it was common among the underage, mateless carriers in Kaon. It was what happened when a carrier’s body became too stressed and confused to function properly anymore and tried to jettison the entire gestational chamber to remove the cause of the stress. It was what happened to friendless femmes living on the street with no regular energon source and innumerable diseases creeping into their bodies. It should not have happened to his mate.

Yes, Starscream was young. Yes, his body was small. But he had been healthy enough. The sparkling had been healthy and strong. There was no reason that he shouldn’t have carried to full term and (with some help) delivered their sparkling safely.

Now, Megatron stared down at the still form on the bed in front of him and then at the even stiller form in his arms. It was so tiny that it could have fit in just one of his massive hands, but it was perfect—a beautiful, little mech with ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes and lips and a nose and everything he should have had… except a spark. Outburst had said it was okay to hold him, and so that was what Megatron was doing. Holding his son. His son who had never even had a chance to open his eyes.

He reached out for Starscream’s hand. It was cold, but only the regular cold of sitting outside the blankets for too long rather than the cold of a sparkless frame. That had been a close thing, though. He’d lost so much energon that Outburst had to transfuse him before he could even start the messy business of surgically removing his gestation chamber and cauterizing his internals.

Megatron gave the hand a squeeze, and then reached up to caress his mate’s chalk-white face. “This was our son, Starscream,” he said quietly.

He took the limp hand again and placed it on the tiny bundle of blankets. Even Starscream’s smaller hands could have cupped the underdeveloped sparkling in them easily, but they probably never would. Outburst said it was unlikely that Starscream would regain consciousness for several days, and by then their son would be ashes.

“I think he has your eyes,” Megatron continued. “I bet he would have flown like you, too. Primus, I love watching you fly, Star. I know I’ve told you that before, but it’s really the most beautiful thing in the world.  _ You _ are the most beautiful thing in the world.” He paused and looked down at his son again. “There would have been two most beautiful things in the world with him around.”

Starscream continued cycling air quietly through his vents, his face blank and unmoving. The sensation of his spark in Megatron’s chest was faint and full of hurt and despair and the aching, yearning question,  _ why _ ?

And Megatron had no answers.

 

* * *

 

Starscream wouldn’t wake up. Not really. Oh, he was lying there with his eyes open, but Megatron wasn’t convinced that he was really awake. He didn’t think that the Seeker had really heard when he had explained what happened, but then he didn’t need to. 

Starscream knew better than Megatron that their son was gone.

Skywarp had crawled into the bed beside his brother, tucking the smaller Seeker’s head under his chin and whispering quietly to him. Thundercracker was on the other side, holding one of his brother’s thin hands in both of his own. Starscream had yet to acknowledge either of them; he simply stared at the wall, tears streaming silently down his face from time to time.

Megatron wanted to be the one holding him, wished that there was some way that he could take away the pain, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and it was killing him.

He left the room.

 

* * *

 

“What did he look like?”

Megatron started. It was the first he had heard Starscream speak in days. He hadn’t said a word when it was Thundercracker instead of Megatron who lifted him out of the hospital bed and carried him back to the apartment that morning. Nor when Skywarp had changed his bandage for him later. He hadn’t said anything at all in the last few hours that Megatron had spent sitting beside him on the edge of the bed, unable to look at him.

“Our son. What did he look like?” the Seeker repeated.

The gladiator shifted and forced himself to look his mate in the eyes for the first time since that night. They had changed. They were the same deep crimson as always, but there was an emptiness in them now that Megatron thought might swallow him.

“He was… he looked like you,” Megatron replied, choking on the words a little.

“Did you name him?”

“Arken. I called him Arken.” Because it was the only thing he could do for him.

A hand shuffled out of the covers and reached for him, small and pale. Megatron pushed himself up off the bed, mumbling about needing to go to sparring practice at the ring.

Starscream didn’t try to stop him.

And three weeks later when Starscream packed some of his things, saying that he just wanted some time apart, Megatron didn’t try to stop him, either.

**Author's Note:**

> *steeples fingers* Did I forget to mention that this was a story about why Megatron and Starscream's relationship went sour?
> 
> I do apologize if this was genuinely upsetting to anyone. I didn't want to put any warnings because they would have been such obvious spoilers...


End file.
